In this podcast episode, you’re gonna learn why using podcasts is a great way to learn languages and how you should use them to get the most out of it.
With the help of podcasts you can easily level up your target language – in an interesting way.
Links
Transcript
The podcast on YouTube
Vocabulary List
| Time stamp (YouTube) | From context | Meaning |
| 0:02 12:46 17:08 | Let’s get cracking (I didn’t pronounce the “ng” at the first mention – the second time at 12:46 I pronounced it more or less right) Alastair: “So you gave the example of saying, let’s get cracking. That’s not a strange word. It’s a way to move from one idea to another. And I think podcasts can be excellent for learning those kinds of expressions that just make you sound more natural“ | Let’s start |
| 0:40 | Malta “but I now live in Malta” | A small island about a hundred kilometers south of Sicily, south of Italy. |
| 2:08 | I grew a little bit disheartened with Italian, when I was studying it. | having lost determination or confidence; dispirited. |
| 3:12 | I got really into the works of Balzac | to become interested in an activity or subject, or start being involved in an activity |
| 5:55 | listening I think is hugely beneficial and often overlooked by people. | To miss something, to ignore. |
| 7:49 | But where I think you can kind of, you can take it up a notch. You can really get more out of them by starting to treat them as a kind of learning resource and as a discrete learning activity. | Idiom To increase the intensity or quality of something, action, or activity to some degree. |
| 18:16 | I think if you’re doing something that is predominantly listening, then your listening skills will improve, but there’s lots of other kinds of components of that. | for the most part, mainly |
| 26:01 | so for someone who isn’t aware of it, it makes pronunciation seem daunting and difficult and hard to approach. Whereas the reality is that pronunciation is simply, you know, creating sounds from our mouth. | tending to overwhelm or intimidate(often: a daunting task) |
| 35.46 | A huge stink causes a huge, terrible smell because of all of the sewage, all of the waste — it’s going to sound a bit disgusting, disgusting all of the waste of urine and feces that had been poured into the Thames. | refuse liquids or waste matter usually carried off by sewers |
| 49:50 | And when you are going to add different blocks together in different permutations, then it completely changes, changes the changes of the meaning. | often major or fundamental change (as in character or condition) based primarily on rearrangement of existent elements |
Vocabulary List with time stamps
5 Comments
I’d like to thank you for all what you are doing Daniel! I know that is not simple but with your courage you help all the English learners like me a lot.
It is not so long that I discover you but I have listened many of you episodes.
With this episode I’m trying to go deep dive in the podcast that I’m listening to improve my English: till now I only listened a lot of podcast but without interact with them and so I haven’t seen any progress. Unfortunately I don’t have too much time to dedicate to English learning but I have to find it now!
Thank you again.
Greeting from Italy
Hello Maurizio.
You are very welcome my friend. I am glad that you listened to many episodes of My Fluent Podcast. That motivates me to produce even more episodes.
You should be proactive and work with the podcast episodes. I know. It’s hard but it definitely pays off. I also tend to just consume lots of different podcasts but deep down I know, that I could improve drastically more by working with the episode… My next step is to try making some sort of a summary of what I’ve listened to. This could be in form of a short recording of myself or just in text form.
Thank you very much for your comment. That means a lot to me. Hope to hear/read from you again. Let me know about some podcasts that you are listening to. Maybe we share some podcasts and can learn together 🙂
Daniel
Hi Daniel. Thank you for your reply.
In the past I have listened also various BBC contents, All ears English podcast(but I can’t bear to listen that America accent for too much time!!), English with Rob, Canguro English.
At the moment I usually listen Luke English Podcast, I started about 2 years ago and never left (I think was there that I discover you podcast). Also I like Paname podcast even if it is hard to me to understand everything and there is no transcript: I usually listen each episode 2 or 3 times to understand more every time. Also, at the moment, I usualy use the Real Life app to listen to some contents.
Thanks to you I have now discover English for curios mind : I have listened a couple of episode and they are very interesting. I think that I’m going to usi it also to try to do some shadowing.
I’d like to ask you something if you have time to answer to me:
– do you use some particular software to notes English expression , vocabulary and help yourself to remember them?
– Sometimes, for work, it happens that I have video call or telephone call in English with non native speakers, usually from other part of Europe and I struggle a lot to understand what they are saying. Do you have any suggestion to improve my listening skills with non native accents or some video/audio of non native speakers to listen to? Especially the Germa accent is very hard to me to understand.
Thanks in advance
BBC podcasts, All ears English, English with Rob, Canguro English. These are all top notch podcasts.
And it goes without saying, that Luke’s English podcast is great as well 🙂
-As for the vocabulary:
Yes I use ANKI on my android. I use the free version. It’s an excellent way to make different folders and revise them. It is available for iOS / android and windows. I think you can even sync between the different devices.
I also use Evernote (it’s basically a digital notebook) but I use that also for other purposes than remembering vocabulary. But it’s great. There are many possibilities. For example when I am watching a movie, I just take a picture of the screen (with subtitle) and store it in Evernote. I think I would bore you if I explained to you every single method that I am using 🙂
There are endless possibilities. It’s important to find something that you are comfortable with. I can also recommend a paper notebook.
– As for the non native accent problem.
That is a tricky one. I know of different English learning groups that are having a lot of Zoom meetings. This helped me a lot because I was not used to accents from Arabian countries, India and others. By attending the meetings and having more exposure to it, you get used to it automatically and begin to understand it better. For example the Facebook Group MAOFEN (Masters of English) unfortunately, there are not that many people with German accents.
Hi Daniel.
Thank you very much for your suggestions.
I enjoyed the MAOFEN facebook group and I have also partecipated to some online meetings…but I was too busy in general in that period…or maybe not really focus in improving my English. Nowday I’m very busy too but I’m trying to do a little bit every day.
Thanks again and I look forward for your next episode.